


March On

by PeachyKeen_WithCream



Category: Being Human (UK), The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cameos, Dreams, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8372689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyKeen_WithCream/pseuds/PeachyKeen_WithCream
Summary: Anders' soulmate marches off into war and never comes home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own 'Being Human' nor am I profiting off this. 
> 
> This is a reposting from my old account.

3\. March On: 

Five truths Anders learns about life: nobody gives a shit about the Johnson boys. There might be some exceptions if he counts the grocery store clerk who drops an extra box of crackers into the bags. Or the time Olaf brings home a woman who hugs him extra tight before she leaves. There could be exceptions to the rules, but nobody sticks around long enough to change his truth 

Second: dropping extra boxes of crackers into bags get grocery store clerks fired, but life doesn’t give a shit about stealing the other things. Anders crumples up the obituary of the hugging woman, and for the first time since he was two, throws a kicking, screaming fit.

Third: pretty faces and silky words get him everywhere, except when it comes to Dawn. Her fingers are cold and soft, curling around his cheek with sympathy. Pain is easier than pity. Pain is easier than staring at her wrist with the completely wrong marking.

Four: Anders is a dick before Bragi even comes along. Being given power after a powerless life just gives the extra push.

Five: whoever decided upon his soulmate is a bigger dick than him. Scratch that – whoever decided upon the whole soulmate business is an asshole. 

-

The undeniable truths about his soulmate are supplied by nightly dreams, doused in color, and drenched with things he cannot have. It's nothing new.

John is ancient and a total mama’s boy. John comes in the middle of a storm with dark hair and fluid up his nose. It doesn’t stop him from shrieking whenever the doctor places their mouth over his nose in his first official complaint about the world. Joy doesn’t stop radiating from his mother, despite the ashen skin, and bloody mess of her sheets. John makes his first cry and she laughs, as if she hasn’t just spent hours screaming herself hoarse.

The joy doesn’t last – John is a sickly baby, and his father a spotty figure in his life. The word ‘soon’ is tossed around a lot. His mother promises soon he won’t be so sickly. Soon there will be more food. Soon his father will be home. Soon the war will end.

John stops being a sickly baby. Still, the table spends many nights bare. His father comes home, but the war doesn’t end. Now his mother is the sickly one.

Anders tries not to think about the war. In the mornings he stumbles for the toilet, curling around it, hunching in on himself protectively. John makes him relive every night until he decides to save his men.

Herrick comes along and seizes the opportunity: humanity still exists in John; clutching his weapon, prepared to go down in a blaze of gunfire. The uniform is still baggy around his shoulders and stained with blood from the previous wearer. He smokes cigarettes and promises to write letters home to his mother. He is leading a group of shit scared children, quaking in boots with trembling arms. 

John dies in the war - Mitchell is born from the ashes.

-

Humanity dies that morning. Afternoon? Evening? Humanity dies with blackened eyes and fangs, shrouded in fog and caked with blood. Anders takes a month to decipher the whole vampire thing. It takes another month whenever he realizes garlic and sunlight are just myths. 

It would be nice if dreams came with warnings. Anders gets tired of seeing women have their throats ripped out. Worse is the empty, glassy stare of their eyes as Mitchell piles dirt on their bodies. 

Ivan and Daisy wander in and out of his life. They get blood drunk and fuck in dirty bathroom stalls. Ivan wears suits and carries himself with earned arrogance. The words: ‘old one’ get tossed around with Ivan. Daisy is harder to pin down: a constant hurricane of lust, grief and torment. She falls down from every high with blood around her mouth and tears in her eyes. 

Big Bad John is worse than Mitchell.

Josie is the eye of the storm. Her fingers slide through Mitchell’s, face puckering with sorrow for a broken man. Josie smokes after sex and watches him sleep, fingers curling in his hair, and eyes glazed. 

Anders memorizes every detail of their life through borrowed eyes. It shouldn’t hurt to see them growing apart, but it does. Anders watches the carefully gathered humanity crumble until she kisses his cheek and stumbles down the stairs of their hotel. 

-

The pink house is stability: anchored by the presence of a werewolf and ghost. Cold tea, leaky plumbing, gnome wallpaper, and neighbors questioning their sexuality are just extra weights. Annie watches her boys eat cold pizza directly from the box, smiling over her mug of untouched tea. Normality is a slow build, but easy to disrupt. It’s even easier to destroy. 

Mitchell crushes it like one of his cigarettes; face still young and smooth. Seeing Josie's face filled out with lines and wrinkles is a gut punch.

Anders plays the Beatles for a week straight. The nurse calls her Mrs. Hunter, and the only time he left the hotel was to buy more cigarettes and chocolate. It hurts worse than seeing them drift apart, because this is permanent.

The inevitable hangs like fog: ghosts must pass over. Immortality does not apply to all supernaturals, and some still desire the normality of family life. Thrusting someone into a previously unknown world is unfair. Then again, life is completely unfair. 

Anders watches everything spiral into shit. 

He watches a massacre under flashing lights, and the shrill laughter of Daisy. In the morning he washes his face, and tries to forget the feeling it gave Mitchell. He can’t decide which part of the immediate aftermath is the worst. It all hurts. 

Life is completely unfair, but Lia deserved to go home. Annie goes home instead. They dance in front of that hideous wallpaper, drunk on the elation of having their resident ghost back, but no one has a cure for paranoia.

Apparently the rules of death don’t always apply to the supernatural world. Neither do the rules of the law. Or sex for that matter. 

A lot of rules don’t apply, but someone has to pay for the crime of the Box Tunnel 20. 

Daisy pays her price; fighting like a hellcat the entire time according to the werewolf responsible. 

-

Five truths Anders learns about soulmates: everyone deserves a best friend, even vampires. 

Two: life doesn’t have prejudice when it chooses to steal; Annie and Josie are proof of this. 

Three: Nina is crafted from spitfire and experience; maybe she would’ve liked John, but Mitchell is another story entirely. 

Four: Once upon a time, there was a man named John that marched off into war. 

Five: Anders’ soulmate marched off to war and never came home.


End file.
